The present invention relates to archiving electronic documents and, more particularly, to the use of messaging systems for the archiving of electronic documents.
Electronic archiving of documents is an increasingly important task for most large enterprises. The ease at which electronic documents can be created by modem personal computer applications has changed the way organizations store and manage critical information. In particular, most of the organizations today keep information about their core business in an ever-increasing volume of electronic documentsxe2x80x94including product designs and documentation, corporate policies, expense reports, purchase orders, presentations, electronic messages, and data related to electronic commerce, etc. Most of these documents need to be stored for extended periods of time (i.e., archived) because they are both related to the core business and required to ensure institutional accountability. Consequently, the ability to manage, share, and control archived documents among collaborative workgroups, workflows, business partners, and across global networks is crucial in gaining advantage in today""s competitive business environment.
Although there are numerous archiving software packages available in the marketplace currently, see e.g. Aegis StarView (http://www.aegisstar.com/), DocuLive (http://www.sni.com/), Lotus Domino.Doc (http://www.lotus.com/products/dominodoc.nsf), Documentum (http://www.documentum.com/), all these systems use specialized desktop applications, proprietary technology, and/or are mostly concerned with the lifetime of documents. They are difficult to administer because new software has to be installed on practically every user""s desktop, possibly thousands of computers in a large organization. Also, using a document management system for the pure purpose of archiving is disadvantageous in terms of both money and complexity of the system. Individual users and IT personnel have to learn a new technology, resulting in a substantial cost for an organization in terms of training and administration.
The present invention emanates from the recognition that organizations already have substantial investments in electronic messaging technologies, which provide the most effective methods for communication, collaboration, and coordination among workers within decentralized organizations and across different companies. Messaging has evolved from a simple communications tool, which allows users to communicate with each other, to a powerful business communication infrastructure that supports collaborative computing, business process automation, electronic commerce, and distributed work environments. Messaging is also used as the middleware for accessing and controlling shared resources, such as a printer server that receives documents as electronic mail (email) and prints a document at the appropriate printer based on the available printers, the document type, and the sender""s identity.
The present invention discloses an architecture for a document archival system built on network-centric groupware such as Internet standards-based messaging. In accordance with an embodiment of the invention, archiving and retrieving and classifying documents into meaningful collections is accomplished in a manner similar to sending email to recipients, retrieving messages from folders, and classifying messages into folder hierarchies. In the simplest scenario, if saveme.com is the archiving server""s name, then sending an email to abc@saveme.com will cause the contents of the email message to be archived in the abc mailbox. In another embodiment of the invention, archived documents are automatically stored in jukeboxes of non-tamperable media such as Write Once Read Multiple (WORM) Compact Disks (CD), which provide high storage capacity, low cost compared to magnetic disks, random data access, and long-term stability.